Question for Chris?

I'm wondering i don't have locals,but i had a talk with a reprsentative from Dish about spotbeams. When they all go up,i was told they will zap out those who are getting local signals from area where they aren't residing. Do believe thsi to be true? What happens to those who use a differnet address to get locals or phone number? Just curious,as i was going to get a differnt address,but figured it wasn't worth the trouble. I guess i have morals. Does that sound bad?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but the spot beams will zap those who live at a different address only because the range of the footprint. If you are not living in the area of the spot beam, you won't receive the locals.

This has already been a problem for some DirecTV subscribers. I know a retired couple who own a motorhome and like to travel throughout the U.S. All this time they have liked the fact that they could be thousands of miles from their hometown and be able to watch their hometown channels. Now they can't receive them because of the spot beams. Needless to say, they are pretty upset. Unfortunately Dish customers are next.

Chris,I thoguht having an RV was an exception for most who like to travel. If that's the case,boy i would be very unsatisfied with that decision. I jsut thought for those not living in general area,they would loose those locals. Thanks for your response.

Because of the way spot beams overlap, it is at least theoretically possible for a DirecTV receiver to ascertain in some circumstances that a subscriber's receiver is outside of the region in which he claims it is.

For example, I believe that most Washington, DC locals are carried on transponder 18, but there have been several reports that the footprint of transponder 18 is huge, and can seemingly be received anywhere in New York State. But if someone were in the Eastern part of New York State, then their antenna would also receive a healthy transponder 28 from the Boston spot, which would be physically impossible if its antenna were in the Washington DMA. If the receiver can either recognize this internally and respond to it, or even communicate this fact to the home office via the phoneline connection, then DirecTV would have the means to identify at least some of the mislocated receivers.

I don't see a strong motivation for them to do so, however. It is the local broadcasters who would want these customers shut off, not DirecTV, so until such time as someone, be it the FCC, Congress or a Court, holds a gun to DirecTV's head, I don't anticipate them trying to use this technology to ferret out mislocated receivers, even if it is technologically feasible for them to do so.